The UK government officially launched Great British Nuclear (GBN), an arms-length body operating through a repurposed British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) Ltd to deliver the government’s long-term nuclear program and support the government’s ambition to deliver up to 24GW of nuclear power in the UK by 2050. This could mean nearly... Read more →

Lightbridge Corporation, an advanced nuclear fuel technology company, announced that Texas A&M University (TAMU) has been awarded approximately $1,000,000 by the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program R&D Awards to study the deployment of advanced nuclear fuels in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The project will be conducted over... Read more →

NuScale Power Corporation and Nucor Corporation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore co-locating NuScale’s VOYGR small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) power plants to provide clean, reliable baseload electricity to Nucor’s scrap-based Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel mills. The companies will also explore an expanded manufacturing partnership through which... Read more →

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Global First Power (GFP) announced that GFP has selected a location at the Chalk River Laboratories to site its proposed Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) project. GFP is proposing to construct and operate a 15 megawatt thermal (MWth) (approximately 5 MW... Read more →

Dow and X-Energy Reactor Company, a developer of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel technology for clean energy generation, announced that Dow has selected its UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site in Texas for its proposed advanced small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear project. The project is focused on providing the Seadrift site... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $22.1 million to 10 industry-led projects to advance nuclear technologies, including two aimed at expanding clean hydrogen production with nuclear energy. The other projects include efforts to bring a microreactor design closer to deployment, tackle nuclear regulatory hurdles, improve operations of existing reactors,... Read more →

Westinghouse Electric Company launched its newest nuclear technology, the AP300 small modular reactor (SMR), a 300-MWe (900MWth) single-loop pressurized water reactor. The AP300 SMR design is scaled from the advanced, proven AP1000 reactor and is the only SMR truly based on an Nth-of-a-kind operating plant. The AP300 SMR is an... Read more →

Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), a US-based vertical integrator of nuclear technologies and services, Hyundai Engineering and SK SK ecopant are teaming up to conduct research and development for carbon-free hydrogen production. The three companies signed an MOU for the construction of a “Hydrogen Micro Hub” at the SK ecopant... Read more →

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awarded a grant to PLN Indonesia Power (Indonesia Power) for technical assistance to help develop the country’s first small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant. Indonesia Power selected Oregon-based NuScale Power OVS, LLC (NuScale) to carry out the assistance in partnership with a... Read more →

The CEA, France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, has spun out two start-ups—Hexana and Stellaria—to develop small fourth-generation modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Hexana aims to implement a fast neutron and sodium-cooled reactor, integrating a high-temperature storage device. This installation will be based on a set composed of two small... Read more →

Dow and X-Energy Reactor Company entered into a joint development agreement (JDA) to demonstrate the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor for an industrial site in North America. (Earlier post.) As a subawardee under the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) Cooperative Agreement with X-energy, Dow intends... Read more →

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon have signed a contract for the deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at OPG’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site. This is the first commercial contract for a grid-scale SMR in North America. The BWRX-300 is a... Read more →

Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a service agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to bring its eVinci microreactor closer to commercialization. The agreement initiates a Vendor Design Review (VDR) which is a pre-licensing technical assessment of the eVinci small modular reactor design. Westinghouse will execute both Phases 1 and... Read more →

Dow, a leading global materials science company, and X-energy, a nuclear energy innovation company, signed a letter of intent which will help Dow advance its carbon emissions reduction goals through the development and deployment of X-energy's advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology in the US. Dow and X-energy will... Read more →

Purdue University and Duke Energy plan to explore the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet the campus community’s long-term energy needs. With interest rising worldwide in new technologies that are reliable and carbon-free, Purdue and Duke Energy intend to study power produced through Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), a... Read more →

The Nikkei reports that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI)is moving ahead with its plans to develop and commercialize nuclear microreactors—reactors small enough to be delivered on trucks—by the end of the next decade. At 3 meters tall and 4 meters wide, the microreactors will weigh less than 40 tons. The reactor... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has established the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, a new DOE office that will support clean energy technology demonstration projects in areas including clean hydrogen, carbon capture, grid-scale energy storage, small modular reactors, and more. Demonstration projects prove the effectiveness of innovative technologies in real-world... Read more →

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will work together with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to deploy a Small Modular Reactor (SMR)—the BWRX-300—at the Darlington new nuclear site, the only site in Canada currently licensed for a new nuclear build. OPG and GE Hitachi will collaborate on the SMR engineering, design, planning,... Read more →

Rolls-Royce and Cavendish Nuclear have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities to deepen the relationship between the parties through cooperation on the Rolls-Royce SMR program. Under this agreement Rolls-Royce and Cavendish Nuclear commit to working together to develop the roles that Cavendish Nuclear can perform in the... Read more →

NuScale Power has finalized an investment and strategic partnership agreement with JGC Holdings Corporation (JGC HD), a holding company of the world’s leading EPC contractor group companies headquartered in Japan. As part of a commercial relationship with Fluor Corporation—NuScale’s majority investor and EPC partner in the United States—JGC HD will... Read more →

Rolls-Royce and Fermi Energia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to study the potential for the deployment of affordable, compact nuclear power stations, known as small modular reactors (SMR) in Estonia. The study will cover all aspects of deployment including grid suitability, cooling, emergency planning, human resources, licensing feasibility, economics... Read more →

Shearwater Energy Ltd., a United Kingdom-based hybrid clean energy company, is developing a wind-SMR (Small Modular Reactor) and hydrogen production hybrid energy project in North Wales. The project would provide 3 GWe of zero-carbon energy and is also expected to produce more than 3 million kilograms of green hydrogen per... Read more →

Canada Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan, released a national SMR Action Plan, which responds to the 53 recommendations identified in Canada’s SMR Roadmap that was launched in November 2018. Canada’s SMR Action Plan seeks to advance the safe and responsible development and deployment of SMRs through a pan-Canadian approach... Read more →

NuScale Power announced that through further value engineering efforts, using advanced testing and modeling tools, NuScale analyzed and concluded that the NuScale Power Module (NPM) can generate an additional 25% more power per module for a total of 77 MWe per module (gross), resulting in about 924 MWe for the... Read more →

Canada investing $20M in Terrestrial Energy to support development of Integral Molten Salt SMR Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Hon. Navdeep Bains, announced a $20 million investment in Terrestrial Energy to accelerate development of the company’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) power plant. This is the first such... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) approved a multi-year cost share award to a new special purpose entity named Carbon Free Power Project, LLC, (CFPP) an entity wholly owned by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), that could provide up to $1.4 billion to help demonstrate and deploy a 12-module,... Read more →